LABOR UNION: An organization of workers or employees who act jointly to negotiate with their employers over wages, fringe benefits, working conditions, and other facets of employment. The main function of unions is to provide a balance for the market control exerted over labor by big business.

You are the type of person who seems to be running around in circles most of the time, in large part because you spend a lot of time running around in circles. Family and friends never let you place the order at a fast-food drive through lane, because there are just too many options and they're hungry. Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at a flea market trying to buy either a pleather CD case or a how-to book on fine dining. Be on the lookout for telephone calls from long-lost relatives. You should consider shopping at stores or businesses beginning with the letter F, but do not buy any products with a serial number or product code containing the number 469821. Your preferred shopping venue is mail order catalogs. Your special symbol is the question mark (?).

Is this You?

As a Gray Skittery, you are ambivalent, indecisive, and uncertain. You are in a constant struggle between the forces of demand and supply, production and consumption, good and evil... and you're losing the battle. You have trouble making decisions and choosing from among the seemingly infinite number of options that you perpetually face. Your shopping experiences are inevitably confusing.

Generating the most possible satisfaction from a given amount of resources. Efficiency means that this satisfaction of wants and needs cannot be increased by producing more of one good and less of another. This is one of the five economic goals and one of two microeconomic goals. The other goals are full employment, stability, economic growth, and equity.

Good news! Manny Mustard, my long-time friend and proprietor of Manny Mustard's House of Sandwiches is having a special on his Deluxe Club Sandwich. Let's drop in for a brief respite -- and lunch. More good news! Manny is bubbling profusely about the vitality of his business. Last month he turned a profit. Yes, that much cherished profit, the goal of business firms, be they large or small. Upon closer inspection Manny's profit calculation might be suffering from an oversight or two. It seems as though Manny neglected to pay himself a wage. Nor did he bother to include any interest expense on the savings he invested in his House of Sandwiches venture. But what the heck, he earned a profit -- didn't he?
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